


Irony

by bootson



Series: Among Some Talk of You and Me [1]
Category: Actor RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Coming Out, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-26
Updated: 2012-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bootson/pseuds/bootson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the news breaks, it's already over.</p><p>Chris and Zach are accidentally outed. This is what happens in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irony

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to my favorite beta: [](http://chellealistic.livejournal.com/profile)[**chellealistic**](http://chellealistic.livejournal.com/) <3  
> Credit for the series title goes to T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and was suggested by [](http://babykid528.livejournal.com/profile)[**babykid528**](http://babykid528.livejournal.com/)
> 
> Originally posted on LJ in 2009, well before Zach actually came out; I'm just too lazy to change the dates.

It all started with Anton.

Chris was filming in some random backwoods town, _backwoods_ being literal in this instance. The hours were long, cell phone reception sucked, and the weather was alternately freezing and glacial. All Chris wanted to do when he made it back to the hotel (which was in the closest "city" about 50 miles north of set) was crank up the heat.

His plan always consisted of burrowing in a cocoon of blankets and listening to CNN. His plan normally faltered. There were too many emails, texts, and voice mails for him to weed through before he could even think about relaxing. Oh, and the constant rewrites he had to deal with. Seriously, Chris didn't find a problem with the dialogue, actually preferred the original snark to the more subtle, redone sarcasm.

One night about a week away from returning to L.A. (all right six days, Chris was counting), Chris wandered into his room to a short voice mail from Anton. For anyone else, this would be typical. Anton, however, tended to ramble until he was cut off or someone in the background reminded him not to have a conversation with technology. This, however, was short enough to keep Chris' interest.

_"Chris, man, I'm fucking sorry. I just...call me. This is important."_

Instead of returning calls to fifteen other people vying for his attention, Chris scrolled to the second name in his contacts and dialed. Apparently, Anton was waiting for him.

"Chris! How are you? You still freezing? Get your body temperature up, seriously, it's -"

Fearing his young friend might hyperventilate, Chris cut him off. "I'm fine, dude. What's going on? Whatever it is, I forgive you." There was a long silence. "Anton?"

"Don't forgive me yet. I may have tanked your career." His voice was thin, not speaker phone thin, but _oh shit, oh shit, oh shit_ thin.

Chris fell back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling and hoping this was a gross overreaction. "What? I'm tired and you're freaking me out."

Anton took a deep breath. "Imayhaveoutedyou."

"Come again?" He shot up straight into a seated position, praying for all he was worth that this wasn't true. Again with the silence. "ANTON. This isn't funny. Tell John and Karl to turn their attention to each other. Prank wars are officially off until filming starts."

"No, man. No." To distract himself, Chris tried to picture Anton pulling at his own hair and pacing the way he normally did when anxious. "Someone stole my laptop in this coffee shop...All my pictures are on it...including Zoe's birthday."

"Fucking shit, Anton!" Chris snapped before this fully computed. While his memory caught up with his automatic response system, Chris released a long groan and flopped back with enough force to bounce lightly against the mattress.

The pictures weren't particularly dangerous or even racy. There may have been three total, actually. Those three, however, were enough to drive the magazines and fangirls into a frenzy. While Chris couldn't form an accurate mental image of the pictures, he knew one was Zach on his lap and another was a side angle of them pressed together against a fence, maybe kissing, definitely too close for a mere friendly conversation.

If these got out, there wasn't much he could do. He could deny them, could make up a story, could actually give Zach a call and see what he wanted to do. None of those were particularly appealing, so Chris forced himself into a new option: blissful ignorance.

"Chris, you there? Chris?"

"Yeah, yeah." Maybe he should have gone through all his messages before making this call. "Has anything come of it yet? Do you know?"

"Not a clue. Haven't seen or heard anything but...I never set a password."

"Dumbass."

"I _know_ ," Anton wailed. "If something happens, you can sue me. It's fine."

A startled laugh escaped his throat. "Shut up, man. It was an accident." Deep, cleansing breaths. Yelling at Anton was usually impossible, being honestly pissed off at him was harder. "Look, I'll deal with it if I have to. Don't worry about it."

Anton sighed, just loud enough for Chris to hear. "Thanks, man. I mean...shit. Zach said the same thing."

"If he didn't rip you a new one, you should have known I wouldn't," Chris tried to joke. In retrospect, he should have anticipated Anton's next comment.

"Half the world's just been rubbing their hands together -"

"Very nefarious."

"-and waiting for him to come out. Most people...well, they don't expect it from you."

"I'm aware." Rolling off the bed, Chris went for the mini-bar. It wasn't much, but the tiny bottles of vodka he grabbed should at least block his thoughts enough for him to sleep. "Look, I'll call you when I'm back in L.A., all right? Don't stress, man. It's not _entirely_ your fault."

As soon as he was completely alone again, Chris showed enough consideration to email his publicist "just in case." Then he thought about Zach for longer than he usually allowed himself.

Maybe he should contact the older man one way or another, just to see what he was thinking, get their stories straight in case this broke on E! in the morning. No, Chris couldn't do that. That would qualify as "taking" because he needed the reassurance of Zach's calm thought patterns. Months ago, Chris had promised himself to stop taking from everyone unless he gave just as much back and he wouldn't fold now, not when he was doing so well.

He pushed it out of his mind, signed up for Google Alerts for his own name, and didn't let it affect him. Filming wrapped without incident and Chris made it home in one piece.

His publicist was paying extra attention to every rumor that reached whatever informants she had and Chris let himself start to forget. Surely, two weeks would have been enough time for a laptop thief to scan through some pictures and contact a few media sources. Maybe they just wiped the thing and sold it. If that were the case, Chris would buy Anton the most expensive Mac he could track down.

Chris was never that lucky.

Lamill was a little more cramped than usual, so Chris squeezed into a corner to wait for his order. Considering he had a fairly extensive agenda for the day, it was best to do a little multitasking. Sunglasses hanging on the neck of his shirt, he opened his email and groaned. It hadn't even been 12 hours since he last checked it, but it was filling up already. He selected the one from his sister first.

The subject line was simple, the body consisting solely of a link to some tabloid-esque website with the phrase _I am soooo sorry. I hoped you'd see it from me first._

That was cryptic. He grabbed his drink as soon as they called it and headed back out, focusing more on the loading screen than anything else. As soon as the doors fell closed, Chris heard them.

Normally, there was a photographer or two on him. Over time, he'd stopped yelling obscenities at them and convinced himself they were just exceedingly annoying poltergeists. It wasn't exactly zen, but it was effective. Today, however, there were at least ten cameras crowding the exit. Everyone was yelling at once and Chris momentarily had premiere flashbacks.

The page finished. He caught his name in bold, didn't even register that Zach's was directly after it, and zeroed in on the picture. His mouth fell open in shock. The forgettable third picture, one where his hands were twisted in Zach's hair and Zach's hands were gripping his waist under his shirt while the kissed like they were trying to suck the other's breath straight out of their lungs, was right there in high definition. Mocking him.

"Fuck," he muttered, shoving his phone into his back pocket and going for his sunglasses. Unfortunately, they didn't offer nearly enough protection as he shoved his way directly through the people surrounding him. There was an actual video camera there, some guy asking if he was dating Zachary Quinto or just fooling around.

"No. Get the fuck out of my face," Chris snapped, shoving a hand against the lens. The guy behind it let out a curse and Chris looked smug, hopefully the jerk ended up with a black eye. "Fucking move, God damn," he continued to mutter similar expressions, all equally eloquent, as he recklessly ran through traffic.

This was bad. Holy hell, this was _really_ bad and Chris was completely out of his depth. It's not that he hadn't sort of expected this at some point; secrets were never permanent, after all. But it could have gone so much differently, been so much easier. In a perfect world, he wouldn't have been doing this alone.

Chris banged his head against the steering wheel and turned his phone off. They had discussed this several times in the early stages of their relationship, before it became much of anything. The agreement was to be careful, but stand together if anything happened. They wouldn't deny it, but they weren't about to advertise. In the end, they would be there for each other; Chris and Zach, a team, providing endless moral support, just like always. That deal had become null and void.

Because, and this was the ironic part, by the time the news broke, it was already over.

Chris had been punched in the stomach and couldn't quite catch his breath; but he gathered all the calm he could and went about his day. He didn't acknowledge the sideways glances or off-handed questions everyone kept throwing at him, didn't look anyone he didn't personally know in the eye, pretended the tide hadn't picked up and the waves were as smooth as ever while he maneuvered through his obligations.

His phone stayed off until he was safe within his own home again. Things were out of control, precisely as he anticipated. Most of his family and friends had called or text, if not both, just to check in. Anton left three apologies back-to-back because the message kept getting cut off in the middle of his sentences. J.J. emailed with two words: You okay?

The only person who hadn't called was Zach. This should be expected because, well, Chris knew he wouldn't. They were fine in public, but they didn't associate on a personal level anymore. Meetings for the sequel, read-throughs, chance encounters at various parties or on the street: all of these were handled with professional grace and courtesy. They weren't what they had been, but there was still a rapport, chemistry which they couldn't deny. It was possibly the only reason anyone thought they could still work together; but everyone didn't see everything.

Chris never let Zach see him frown when they turned away, didn't pout when Zach grinned, didn't admit he tried to avoid these meetings, and never, under any circumstances, let on that his chest still constricted and breath faltered when he realized Zach was _right there_ within touching distance. Honestly, Chris was all right after the break up, better on a personal level. Still, sometimes, he missed Zach and everything he brought with him.

His phone was ringing while he tried to decide between sleep and beer. Chris planned on ignoring it, but his "handlers" weren't going to let him get away with evasive tactics much longer.

"Pine." He answered gruffly. Apparently, it would be the beer.

"I'm glad you're back among the living," the familiar voice was clipped with false cheer. "We need to discuss our options, Chris."

"That's why I pay you. You handle the media," he sighed, twisting the cap off. How could he be expected to have this discussion when he had no clue which direction was up?

"Look, Chris, I know this is a mess. I know you're overwhelmed." Chris could see his publicist spinning pens on her desk, tapping nonsense into her keyboard. "But you need to make a statement quickly. I understand if you want to talk to Quinto first-"

"We don't talk," Chris snapped, gulping half his drink. "Do what you do. Call his people and see what he wants to do. Then call me and let me know what we're doing. I can only pretend I'm deaf for a short window of time."

"Chris, I'm not the girl sitting between you two in homeroom," she sighed. "Look, his people already want to know what we're doing. Apparently, you're on the same page."

What? He froze, staring at a nick in the wall without remembering how it came to be. So Zach was leaving this up to him. He was leaving it up to Zach. A five minute phone call or four text messages would probably clear this up. But Chris was a relentless pain in the ass and Zach was stubborn as hell. Yeah, that wasn't happening. Instead, Chris made a decision.

Ironic, this is what it took for Chris to man up and make a decision without first checking who was in his corner.

"It happened and I'm not embarrassed by him. I won't deny it."

There was a twenty minute argument following his declaration. Chris had his career to think of, this business was all about image and he'd just turned his upside-down. Chris needed to think about his future projects, there were some in negotiations which could still fall apart.

Chris claimed he didn't care, but it was a variation on a lie. Really, Chris just didn't want to hurt Zach any more. While Zach had been the one to break it off, ultimately, Chris knew Zach was still affected. Neither one of them had wanted to walk away, but Zach was tired of Chris and his bullshit. His warring image freak outs and need to please had taken their toll on Zach.

Zach gave a lot. He listened to Chris' grand schemes or depressed rants at all hours, talked him down when he was too angry to see straight. As Zach put it: _"All you do is take, Christopher, and I can't do it anymore. Call me when you can handle reciprocating once in a while."_

Chris hadn't called for weeks. When he did, Zach blew him off. The words plagued him and Chris tried to take them to heart. He stopped begging for attention and comfort, started running a sort of tab where he didn't ask for something from anyone (except his family) until he had done something for them first. Shockingly, Chris had been better, happier for it. By the time he realized how much he had changed, Chris knew it was too late to try. So he settled for being civil when he saw Zach in public and was starting to hope they may refresh their friendship, the "epic bromance," when filming started again.

But Chris wouldn't ask. If Zach wasn't hell bent on denying this, Chris wasn't going to be the one to put the nail in the coffin. So he made his calls, gave his thanks, asked for nothing. Even when Anton begged for something to do and Zoe offered her mixology prowess, Chris declined.

Then the interviews started. None were specifically scheduled to address this issue, were arranged pre-scandal. With a new movie hitting theaters and his name the one meant to attract an entire demographic, Chris was thrown into heavy publicity mode. He didn't mind so much, except he knew what they'd want to talk about now and it wasn't fair to his movie. Everyone said he could have every single interviewer informed that Zach Quinto and sexuality were strictly forbidden topics, but Chris trusted them to be professional enough to stay on course.

Until his luck once again faltered.

A full day had been scheduled, three shows total. The first was a live morning show and Chris had met the person he'd be speaking with a couple times, even if he never could remember the guy's name. He was confident this would go smoothly. Live television, however, was harder to predict than Lindsay Lohan's tweets.

The blonde man had smiled, asked appropriate questions about the movie and filming process, the clip was shown. Chris was only supposed to be there for another few minutes after that, shamelessly plugging the release date. Unfortunately, the next segment was having technical difficulties and the ones after it weren't fully prepared.

There was down time and who was Chris to decline when a harried P.A. came over the beg him to talk about _something_ and be charming for a few minutes longer? The whole situation nearly felt like a set up, but Chris wasn't one for paranoid delusions so he stopped those thoughts short.

But the topic wasn't on a ban and Chris had sworn he wouldn't deny it when it came up, even though he ignored questions on the street.

"So, tell me, Chris, how are you handling this..." The man flailed for a second, trying to find an appropriate and inoffensive term. "How are you dealing with the rumors flying around?" Clearly, this guy didn't usually go for the celebrity gossip discussions with the celebrities themselves.

Chris shrugged smoothly, forcing his posture to straighten a little. "Mostly, I'm not talking about it. Maybe it's...the coward's way, way out, but I'm not giving someone with a camera in front of a random restaurant my life story. That's crass...and repugnant. I like to pretend I have a little more class than that. Better to appear eloquent than...abrasive."

Jesus, what was he even saying? Must have made some semblance of sense, Chris mused, because he was receiving a nod and more questions.

"Feel free to take the Fifth here, but is it true?"

"You mean are the pictures real?" Oh, God. He hadn't really prepared for this, planning on just winging it when he needed to. He could already see this replaying on The Soup later. "Yeah, they are. They were taken at a friend's birthday party a few months ago."

"And someone released them? That must be causing some trust issues."

"Don't psychoanalyze, man," Chris snorted. He wasn't going to force fake laughter to make this guy more comfortable. "It was a complete accident and we all knew there was a chance these would leak...we weren't sure, we sort of hoped they wouldn't, but, you know, what can you do? Accidents happen, you just have to...well, deal with the...backlash later."

Confusion or awe met Chris, he didn't know which and was too busy trying to organize his thoughts to possible follow-up questions.

"So you and Zachary Quinto decided just to let it go? Neither of you have released a statement." This wasn't entirely true, but the statements had only addressed privacy violations; that was as much of an admission as anything.

His body stiffened, partially because this _was_ starting to feel too rehearsed. Mostly, though, Chris' shoulders tightened because he hadn't wanted this part to go public. "Well...we don't see each other much anymore...haven't discussed this. Probably should have, you know, to get on the same page. But we aren't, uh, together anymore and, well, what can you do?"

"What happened?" It was an eager question, begging for too many personal details.

Chris steeled himself and gave the same story he'd given his non-Zach connected friends. _This_ wasn't up for public discussion, even to people he was close to, making this nearly too much. Luckily, Chris was practiced in keeping his thoughts inside when necessarry. "We sort of...moved on? Grew apart. The typical things." If he said anything else, really gave the reasons, Zach would come across as the bad guy and Chris couldn't stand if he caused that.

Someone off to the side was giving them a signal to wrap this up into a commercial, having apparently fixed whatever system glitch they had encountered. Maybe it wasn't a set up and the guy had just been prepared in case Chris let him talk.

"We've got to go to break, but one more thing?" Sighing, Chris motioned for him to continue. "Are you...Was this..."

It didn't take a psychology degree to figure out where he was trying to go with his half-phrases. The wrap motions were getting erratic so Chris took pity on them all. "I don't like labels. Call me bisexual if you have to, but I don't classify myself that way."

A resolute nod followed and the guy was grinning. He thanked Chris, they shook hands, mentioned the movie once more then cut.

Normally, Chris was polite enough to stick around for a few minutes and chit-chat with the interviewer if there was time or other staff members if they wanted his attention. But everything was in an uproar. Everyone in the immediate area who had even two free minutes seemed to be crowding him and Chris needed air, desperately. He pulled at the microphone, momentarily feared he had broken the damn thing, dropped it on a table and ran.

All right, he didn't run so much as _walk quickly_ to retrieve his things. He took a few deep breaths when there was a door between him and the rest of the world, but someone was knocking on the door as he found his jacket, sunglasses, other miscellaneous junk. The producers wanted to talk to him, apologize if things got out of hand, thank him for his time and what he had just done for them.

Chris muttered things he hoped were appropriate as he rushed away from the rapidly narrowing walls. The gopher who was sent to speak to him was a short girl who practically jogged to keep up. He shut the elevator doors on her.

Fuck. Shit. Oh, sweet baby Jesus. He'd just verbally outed himself. Actually flat out, plain as day, confirmed what everyone already knew. On national television. On a morning show. And he still had things to do for the rest of the day, which this delay was now making him late for. He was catching his breath as his car pulled up, ready to whisk him away to another location with more irrelevant people. Chris groaned once he was in the back of the car, arms on his knees and head on those. His chest was tight; his eyes stung; he was about to have a panic attack.

Maybe he would have been perfectly fine if he had any sort of downtime to decompress. Slowly, he sipped water and concentrated on regulating his breathing. While still a bit shaken, Chris managed to finish out his day. It ended with an Entertainment Tonight interview which was nearly a direct repeat of the morning, news must have traveled.

Chris avoided as much as he could, still too nervous to understand what he was saying and rambling a little too much. Granted, Chris always had trouble with interviews if only because he had too many fleeting thoughts and couldn't always organize and censor in the allotted time periods; but he felt like he was using circular logic and people weren't believing his nonchalance.

Thankfully, the day ended. His agent had to settle for texting, probably too frazzled to actually speak with him. Chris was fine with this and tried to be just as okay with his own actions. Largely, he was having trouble because he was overwhelmed but didn't know who to call. He hadn't asked for help in so long that he wasn't sure how to go about it without offending someone anymore.

He ended up face down on his sofa, bemoaning his misery to the cushions. When his phone started vibrating, loudly, from his pocket, Chris was so desperate for human interaction that he didn't even check the screen.

"Yeah?" His voice was half muffled by the cushion he was still generally hiding against.

"Chris? Hey, um...It's Zach."


End file.
